Ridge says they tried to use it just before the election. Former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge dropped out of the Bush administration after the first term due (in part) to his concern that the administration was using terror alerts to play politics. The 2004 election incident, specifically, pushed him over the edge. “After that episode, I knew I had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government for the private sector,” he wrote in his new book. source
And he did it without the public option. Three years ago, former Republican Massachusetts governor and likely 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney pushed health care reform through his state. It requires people to have health care, but gives help to the poor. And it’s popular – 7 in 10 really like it. It’s food for thought for sure, and a perfect arguing point for Romney. Watch him go: “You don’t have to have a public option. You don’t have to have the government getting into the insurance business to make it work.” source
Birmingham, Alabama school board candidate Antwon Womack • Whose pumped-up resume got him into a world of criticism (and us into world of hilarity). He will drop out of the race today. • source
It’s a right-wing conspiracy. Despite the fact that Bill will otherwise miss the U.S., eastern Massachusetts could bear some of the storm’s fury. Riptides are expected along the coast and Cape Cod could be in the storm’s path. Hurricanes don’t hit up there often, but Bill appears to be making a special trip up thataway. source
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was released by a Scottish court today. Megrahi, a Libyan national, is suffering from terminal prostate cancer and only has a short time to live. So the court set him free on compassionate grounds. He’ll likely be with family within hours. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was critical of the release before it happened, saying, “We are still encouraging the Scottish authorities not to do so and we hope that they will not.” The Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 killed 270 people in 1988. source
Antwon Womack is running for the Birmingham, Alabama school board (✓) in a district he reportedly doesn’t even live (✓) after giving false credentials – lying about going to college (✓), lying about his age (✓), lying about which high school he went to (✓), lying about graduating from high school (✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓), and calling himself a doctor (ahahahahah ✓). His political career is over before it even began, and this video deserves to seal the coffin.source